From Jude Dangwam, Jos

The Federal Government was to harmonize disjointed Women programs across the country with coordinating policy that streamline national programs for women from the federal to the state, down to local government areas and the Wards levels across the country.The Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of women Affairs, Amb Gabriel Taminu Aduda said the government through the federal ministry of Women Affairs was determined to have a coordinated policy with a national program that are targeted at Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) in the country to be domesticated across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.

Aduda stated this during the ongoing 24th Regular National Delegates Conference of Council of Women held in Jos the Plateau State capital.He said the moves became necessary considering the fact that disjointed programs have over the years not yielded the desired results leaving a large number of women in abject poverty across the nation.The Women Economic Empowerment policy is aimed at focusing on Women in Agriculture, looking at how the policy will support women farmers in gaining access to land and resources to help women improve their agricultural skills and productivity, and set specific programs to expand market access for women in agriculture across the country.He further maintained that the core sectoral interventions in the policy document will covers, “Women in Agriculture, Women in Entrepreneurship, Women in the, Traditional Labour Market, Women in Emerging Industries, Women’s Education and Skill Acquisition”The Permanent Secretary noted that the conference also seeks to find out what are the main challenges states face in domesticating the WEE policy and possibly look at how they can be addressed.The Director, Economic Services Department; Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Blessing Amunike noted that the gathering is to come up with policies that empower Nigerian women through the National Policy on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE).She stressed that the main aim is to have the policy domesticated and implemented in the 36 States of Nigeria and the FCT that will create a series of activities by women at all levels.The founder and Managing Director of Eden Venture Group handling the communication aspect of the WEE policy, Fifehan Osikanlu maintained that through awareness campaign and advocacy on the domestication of the national policy, more women will be strengthen and armed with the requisite knowledge of the policy to make decisions that will impact on their lives directly.”This policy targets gender gaps that prevent women from reaching their full potential, particularly in financial inclusion, education, digital access, and economic participation.”Despite women making up 49.3% of Nigeria’s population, they face significant economic barriers. 70% of women are extremely poor, 45% of women have access to financial services while 56% are men. Women perform 70-80% of agricultural labour, but only 10% own land.”In education, 53% of girls complete secondary school compared to 67% who are boys. While in the digital access space, 34% of women have internet access compared to 54% who are men. The gender wage gap has women in Nigeria earning 45% less than men in similar roles as only 1 in 5 Board Members of Nigerian companies are women.” She lamentedPanelists at the engagement reiterated that the country suffered over the years and in recent times especially in the area of food production because of lack of coordinated policies and programs that will equip women in agriculture, Entrepreneurship among others.